weight

Can You Train And Tame Your Hunger?

May 3, 2011 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Physical – or real – hunger, the kind you feel when your stomach is growling, you’re irritable as all get-out, you’ve got zilch energy, and probably a throbbing headache, means you body needs food for fuel.

Info You Can Use About Hunger

Hunger is somewhat unpredictable. Your actual hunger levels are not the same every day and can be affected by what your body needs and does — like activity, hormone levels, sickness, and other things.

Hunger doesn’t necessarily follow a time schedule. You can adjust the types and amounts of your meals and snacks to influence the next time you will be hungry. Eating just because the hands of the clock are at noon or 6PM – even though you’re not hungry – can lead to weight gain and unhealthy eating habits.

What you eat affects your hunger level. Carbs, fat, and protein are digested at different rates. Simple, refined carbs like soda and candy are digested rapidly. They give you quick energy from a surge in your blood sugar – which is followed by a rapid drop in your energy. Protein foods give you the most sustained blood sugar levels and satiety without the blood sugar spikes. Eating food that has a balance of nutrients is probably the best way to satisfy your hunger, keep you feeling fuller longer, and give your body the fuel it needs.

How much you ate at your last meal affects you hunger levels since larger meals take longer to digest. Haven’t you ever eaten so much for dinner that you’re not hungry until lunch the next day?

You can put off eating for a while –occasionally ignoring your hunger won’t cause a long-term or significant drop in your metabolism. If you do postpone your hunger the urge to eat will come back and may be stronger when it does return.

Your stomach is about the size of your fist and can be filled by a palm full of food. Of course, since your stomach is a muscle, it can also stretch. When you stretch it out by putting in too much food you probably don’t feel so great (like overly stuffed at Thanksgiving). When you eat small meals you’ll get hungry more often and perhaps fuel your body more efficiently. This is the rationale for 5 or 6 small meals a day rather than two or three larger ones.

Your body is smart. Have you noticed that sometimes you are hungry for a specific food? It might be your body’s way of letting you know that it needs a particular nutrient. Careful: sometimes that hunger is head or emotional hunger that popped up because you just passed a bakery and the smell of just-baked chocolate chip cookies is acting like a trigger!

All kinds of foods can play a role in satisfying your hunger. Labeling food good or bad puts the food in charge. Depriving yourself of a particular food or attaching special meaning to it can set you up for cravings and overeating. It gives the food power over you rather than vice versa. Allowing yourself to make good choices from all foods; eating when you’re hungry; and eating portions that satisfy and not stuff you, put you, not the food, in charge.

When Should I Eat: a numbered scale to help you figure out how hungry you are and when to eat.

Have You Noticed That Some Well-Known Chefs Are Shrinking?

March 18, 2011 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

In girth that is. The chef’s weight loss is frequently motivated by a health scare – although sometimes just by vanity or wanting to be more mobile and agile in the kitchen — many star chefs have devised their own plans for losing weight.

Fortunately, for them, they have knowledge and their skill in the kitchen at their disposal to make food more flavorful, perhaps downright delicious, while cutting back on the use of sugar, fat, and salt.

What The Slimmed Down Chefs Do

According to an article in The Daily News, what they do is:

Reengineer their palates: Richard Blais of Top Chef fame followed a vegan diet for 30 days to jump start his 60 pound weight loss. He says it was a palate cleanser that made him aware of how sweet, fatty, and salty his food was. Art Smith, Oprah’s former chef, lost 95 pounds by changing the way he ate – incorporating more whole foods, eating six meals a day, and making uncomplicated food, often following the same menu most days of the week.

Eat smaller portions: Aside from eating smaller meals more frequently, some chefs like Houston’s Ronnie Killen, who lost 215 pounds, eats four ounces of a 16 ounce steak and saves the rest for another meal.

Find new ways to add flavor and devise new ways to add taste but not tons of calories: New York City’s Michael Psilakis poaches garlic in olive oil and then adds the garlic to various foods to really punch up the flavor of lower calorie items like mussels and gigante beans. Many of the chefs use onion, garlic, and many herbs and spices for flavor.

Indulge occasionally (or have a planned cheat day): Many of the chefs, like Art Smith, build in a cheat day or leave room in their calorie budget for the occasional indulgence by eating lighter meals and fewer calories in anticipation of the indulgence.

Exercise: almost all of the chefs move around more than they did. New York’s Rocco Dispirito became a triathlete, but Art Smith, who has a rigorous workout routine, says he sometimes just blasts music and dances.

The Bottom Line

Whatever routine a chef follows, they all seem to have become aware of portion sizes. They’ve learned about calories and the overabundance of sugar, fat, and salt in many recipes. And, they move more. They do not deprive themselves. They may restrict the amount of food that they eat – but they are eating whole food with good flavor and they’re making room for the occasional, not daily, indulgence.

Art Smith cautions that dessert is a treat. As he says, “If you have dessert every day, then it’s no longer a treat.”

Try following their strategies when you’re cooking at home – or even when ordering in a restaurant.

If we could just get more chefs to offer smaller portions of delicious and healthy whole foods in their restaurants and food companies to do the same with their prepared products it would be a whole lot easier to lose and/or maintain weight and to be mindful of portion size.

A Healthy Eating Lesson On The Subway

March 15, 2011 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

New York city, uptown #2 train, Saturday night. Not too crowded, most people are wearing their subway stares – avoiding eye contact, eyes glazed over, ipod earbuds in place, bodies rocking with the motion of the train. My trip isn’t long enough to pull out something to read, so I start to scan the ads that run above the seats– something I’ve entertained myself with since I was a little kid.

One whole side of the subway car I was in was filled with posters for New York City’s “Are You Pouring On The Pounds” campaign — aimed at teaching people to reduce their sugar intake (and lose or keep off weight) by cutting down on sugary drinks. It also encourages New Yorkers to drink water, seltzer or low-fat milk instead of the sweet stuff.

The posters are filled with liquid pouring out of bottles of soda, “sports” drinks or sweetened iced tea and turning into blobs of fat as it reaches the glass. Large graphics leave you with no doubt about the number of teaspoons or packets of sugar in each drink — or the total amount of liquid sugar that you could drink daily – as shown in the photo above.

For example: a 20 ounce bottle of soda is equivalent to 16 packets of sugar and a 32 ounce gigantic size cup – the kind so popular in movie theaters, gas stations, and arenas — contains the equivalent of 26 packets of sugar.

Do You Forget To Count The Calories You Drink?

It’s hard to overeat without noticing it. But, many people who gain weight — and can’t figure out why — forget to include the calories in what they drink. Sugary drinks can add hundreds of calories and they don’t even make you feel full.

On average, Americans now consume 200 to 300 more calories each day than 30 years ago, with nearly half of those calories coming from sugar-sweetened drinks. A survey of adult New Yorkers shows that more than 2 million drink at least one sugar sweetened soda or other sweetened beverage each day – often at 250 calories a pop. Teenagers who drink sugary beverages get an average of 360 calories from them each day. (They’d have to walk 70 city blocks to use up that many calories.)

Some Facts

A teaspoon of sugar weighs about four grams and each gram of sugar has four calories – or about 16 calories per teaspoon of sugar. On average, Americans consume about 22 teaspoons of added sugar a day – the equivalent of around 350 calories. (Added sugar refers to the extra, empty calorie, added sweeteners, not the sugar that naturally occurs in foods like fruit and milk.)

The quickest way to decrease some of that sugar is to cut down on soda and sweetened drinks. Sugary drinks, including sweetened tea or sweetened water that claims to be healthy, account for about one-third of added sugars.

Eating large quantities of sugar can lead to obesity and health problems like diabetes and heart disease. The American Heart Association recommends a daily max of six teaspoons of added sugar for women and nine teaspoons for men. That’s quite a bit less than 22 teaspoons Americans generally average. Too many spoonfuls of sugar may create the need for medicine rather than making it easily go down!

Are You Waiting For The Perfect Time To Start Your Diet?

March 8, 2011 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Do the stars, moon, sun, and all the planets need to be in alignment for you to start your diet?

Diet, not a word I usually use, implies deprivation and a way of life that is not easy, comforting, and fun. So no wonder there are tons of excuses and reasons not to start.

Does This Sound Familiar?

You’ve decided that you want to lose weight. Do any of these thoughts and actions seem familiar:

“I’ll wait until Monday to start” – and then you eat enough over the weekend to gain more weight.
“Wow, it’s Monday, but so and so’s birthday is Wednesday and we’re going out to dinner and then there will be cake – so I might as well wait until after Wednesday to start.” And then it’s Thursday and you go back to “I’ll wait until Monday.”
“I don’t have the right kind of food in the house and it’s raining outside and I can’t get to the gym – so I might as well chow down today and wait until I can stock up on the right stuff” (and when is that?).
“I was so ‘good’ all week and then on Friday I went out and had drinks and dessert and a ton of bread. So I figured I ‘blew it’ and might as well eat what I want all weekend. I can start again on Monday.” Of course Monday comes along and another verse is added to this tune.

There’s Always A Reason — Or An Excuse

You get the idea. You can always find a reason not to start your new healthy eating plan or activity program. How about listing the compelling reasons to want to start.

Try A Different Way Of Thinking

Diets don’t work. Maybe they do for the short-term for some of you, but it’s rare to have long lasting weight loss from a restrictive diet mentality.

Try a different approach. Healthy eating habits are the key to success. Finding what works for the long term may require some out of the box thinking and creative solutions. Go for it and give it time. Just start.

Have you ever watched an athlete look for an opening through a crowded field of players all trying to obstruct his or her way? The athlete just keeps looking for an opening – an opportunity. The choice might be unconventional and require lateral movement or some pulling back before surging forward, but without some kind of move nothing’s going to happen — no momentum will be gained.

Look for your opening and take it – stop waiting for that elusive perfect moment or the perfect time to lose weight. You can keep telling yourself that you’ll start tomorrow — but will tomorrow ever come?

What Not to Ask: How Much Weight Have You Lost?

February 25, 2011 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN 1 Comment

illustration of an over-weight man — Photoexpress

In the past few weeks I have heard two well-respected interviewers ask some well-known people questions like “How much weight have you lost?” or, “What do you weigh?”

The interviewers, Barbara Walters and Ann Curry, are excellent at their craft; highly intelligent; two people I admire; and thin, thin, thin. Neither of them looks like she has ever struggled – really struggled (I don’t mean losing five pounds to look better) with her weight. I’m talking about the kind of weight that makes your health care professional describe you as obese or morbidly obese and start waving red flags.

In both cases, the person being interviewed (Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey in Ms. Curry’s interview, Carrie Fisher in Ms. Walters’) declined to give a number – but rather said that s/he’s on the right path, feels better, and is dedicated to losing weight for his/her health. (Carrie Fisher is a paid spokesperson for Jenny Craig).

Good for them! No, a stand-up round of applause for them! I get it – both personally and professionally, that people who have never really had weight challenges don’t understand the difficulties associated with losing weight – real weight, not vanity weight. There are legions of completed and ongoing research studies that have looked and are looking for answers to why some people gain – and cannot easily lose – weight, even though their caloric intake and energy expenditure should allow them to do so.

Inherent in the question, “How much weight have you lost?” is the implication that there is a formula, an algorithm, and if it is just applied weight will fly off and stay off. Yea, right. Don’t we wish! Do people trying to lose weight function in a controlled space where all of the influences from the outside world coupled with their own unique physiology allow a predictable weight loss — a weight loss that can be easily sustained after it occurs? If that’s the case, my education has misled me and I’m lying to my clients. (On the record, I respect my education and I love working with my clients.)

So, here’s the thing. If someone you know – or have occasion to talk to – is in the process of losing weight, don’t ask him or her to put a number on it. Quite honestly, this could have a counterproductive effect because frequently people will lose inches, feel better, and have better clinical numbers (lipids, blood sugar) that may not initially be reflected in pounds lost.

Asking that dreaded question, “How much,” might just make the person think that a lack of significant change in numbers means that they are not succeeding. If they want you to know, they’ll tell you. Anyway, why do you need to know?

Losing weight is a long-term process. Healthy habits need to be created that will facilitate weight loss and then keep it off. Some people will never be slim – but they will be a whole lot healthier at a higher number on the scale if they are eating well and moving around.